Other

This is going to be super quick because I just got home from a soccer party at Double Dave’s pizza and I think that speaks for itself as to my mental state right now.

Here are a few cute things I found this week.

1. anwen peasant dress

Anthropologie had this dress in cream earlier this fall, but I love this bright yellow for spring.

2. Schutz mayale booties

These booties are super cute and on sale for $149.95 plus an additional 40% off with code XTRA40. They also come in black.

3. every open back shift dress

Perfect dress to throw on all spring and summer.

4. print drop waist shift dress

This may be too short to wear as a dress but would look great with white skinny jeans.

5. asymmetrical top

I love a basic black top that has a little something extra going on. This also comes in cream.

6. pam breeze-ly green tunic

I’ve featured this top before but I love it every time I see it. I am such a fan of this shade of green.

7. split back boyfriend sweater

This has great reviews and looks like an easy piece to throw on with jeans and boots. It’s on sale for $49.90 and is sold out in most colors except black and red.

8. wander inn serape weekender bag

I adore the Junk Gypsies. And if you need a cute t-shirt then you need to head over to their site immediately. But yesterday this fun serape print bag caught my eye and I fell in love.

9. cozy pullover shirt

I love that this looks layered but is one easy piece that you can throw on.

10. cloverfield printed tunic

I bought this earlier in the fall and love it. It’s definitely long enough to wear with leggings and comes in several different color option.

That’s it for today.

Have a great Friday.

First of all, thank you for all the kind comments on my post from Monday. I really appreciate the support. And I planned to write more this week but time just got away from me and I’ve been very busy procrastinating and watching Fixer Upper as opposed to actually working on my book.

Secondly, here are just a few things and/or resources I thought you may be interested in.

1. Apps and such

Many of you asked about apps you needed to know about for your kids’ phones and here are a couple of good articles I’ve found that list apps to watch out for. I think the biggest thing to remember is there is basically a new app every day and the best thing is just to continue to remind our kids that anything that goes online is there forever.

teen safe app blacklist

parents’ guide to ten dangerous apps

I also love this blog written by Sissy Goff and David Thomas at Daystar Counseling in Nashville. They are a wealth of wisdom when it comes to raising kids and I can’t recommend their blog or their books enough.

Raising boys and girls blog

And there are two parenting books that I continue to read and re-read over the years. There is certainly no precise formula to raising healthy, respectful kids, but these come pretty close and have helped me a lot.

Raising Respectful Children in a Disrespectful World by Jill Rigby

Parenting the Whole-Hearted Child by Jeannie Cunnion

2. Van Halen was right

Sometimes you might as well jump. This message by Steve Harvey is one of the best things I’ve listened to in a while. Lots of truth.

3. To make you laugh

One of my favorite things to watch is Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. A whole new season just started and I’ll be watching. If you go back to past seasons, I particularly love his interview with Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, the one with Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks, and the one with Larry David.

You can watch here. Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee

4. Hello. It’s me.

By the time most of you read this the whole thing will have aired, but I have loved watching this preview of Carpool Karaoke with Adele.

5. I’ll be there for you

NBC announced yesterday that there will be a Friends Reunion. Stop it right now.

All I know is they better not say something stupid like Ross and Rachel got divorced and ended up in a bitter custody battle for Emma (who would now be 13 by the way).

6. Can’t even

Piper says getting all the way up on the couch is hard.

Hope you have a nice Thursday.

I normally reserve this space as a place to share important things like Mabel’s haikus or a great new mascara I’ve found. Sometimes I’ll delve a little deeper and share my thoughts on the return of flare jeans (YES, PLEASE.) And you need to know it’s intentional on my part because life can get so heavy and we all have so much serious in our life that my hope is to lighten it up a bit most days.

But this past week has been a heavy, sad week for my real life community. Early last week a boy at our local high school committed suicide after being continually bullied by a group of fellow students. From what I know, the majority of this apparently took place over various social media channels and I won’t even pretend to know like I know all the ways there are these days to harass someone online. I thought I was so tech savvy because I know kids create Finstagram accounts (that’s a fake Instagram) and use Snapchat, but in the last few days I’ve read about so many other apps that make cyber bullying easier than ever.

And in these days of the fallout after this tragedy, I feel like our community is grappling with what should have been done differently, what could have been done differently, and how we keep our kids from being bullied or being a bully. Spoiler alert: I don’t know all the answers to these questions. In fact, at one of my speaking events last year someone introduced me as “a comedian and a parenting expert” and I cringed because I’m not a comedian (as evidenced by the fact no one has ever one time followed something I’ve said with a Ba-da-bum on the drums) and I am certainly no parenting expert seeing as how I’m only twelve and a half years into this job. I know as a parent I have made mistakes and will continue to make mistakes. I’ve been too strict and I’ve been too lenient. I’ve yelled too much and I haven’t yelled enough. I’ve second guessed decisions that P and I have made and, ultimately, find myself on my knees asking God to cover the places where we are going to get it wrong. Parenting is some days like a pop quiz and -SURPRISE- there’s an essay portion at the end.

But here are a few things I do know. I know the darkness wants to come for our kids. I know that evil is everywhere and looking for a chance to whisper to them that they are less than, that they’re inadequate, that they’ll never be enough and that their life doesn’t matter. I know that bullying has gone on from the beginning of time and has never been easier now that we can hide behind a keyboard and show our rear end without showing our face. I know that many people are more fragile than they appear and we need to treat our fellow human beings with kindness and respect even when they are different from us and we don’t agree with them. And I know our kids are looking to us to model appropriate behavior. They may not act like it or acknowledge it, but they know better than anyone if who we appear to be outside our home is the same person we are inside the walls of our home.

What if we teach our kids that their true identity and security is found in Ephesians 2:10, that “they are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for them to do”? Each of us is wonderfully and fearfully made and God has put us in our families, schools, communities and world in this time and in this generation for a very specific and unique reason. And instead of finding power or making ourselves feel better by making someone else feel small and insignificant, we will never feel more empowered or confident than when we run our own race to discover the purpose for which God has created us.

What if we showed them what kindness and compassion look like? There is never any weakness in showing mercy and grace because those characteristics are the very heartbeat of God. Let’s live in a way that teaches our children the importance of loving our neighbor and that peers aren’t our competition. We can cheer each other on without being afraid it takes something from us when we realize that God has each of us exactly where we’re meant to be. The comparison trap is an endless vortex of nothingness that only serves to make us feel insecure and discontent because we are measuring our insides against someone else’s outside.

And what if we instill in them the words of 2 Timothy 1:7, “God hasn’t given us a spirit of fear but of power, love and sound mind”? God doesn’t want us to live in fear and we can call on his power and love to stand up to the bullies in this world and, maybe even more importantly, speak up for those who are too broken and have been hurt too badly to defend themselves. P quoted Edmund Burke at church yesterday and reminded us “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”. Let’s raise good men (and women) who aren’t afraid to speak up or do something when they see wrong.

There is so much emphasis on paying attention to what our kids see online, what apps they use on their phones, who they hang out with at school and in their free time and all those things are important. I absolutely check Caroline’s phone on a regular basis and will continue to as long as I’m paying for it and I will flat take it away from her if I ever see that she’s not using it like a responsible member of society. Our mantra here is “social media is a privilege, not a right” and I plan to say it over and over again and any eye rolling will only make me say it more and maybe even have a t-shirt made. But I think I’m realizing the most important thing is to teach her to be true to herself and who we are raising her to be even when we’re not looking, even when she’s not at school, and even when no one will know what she did, because one of these days she’ll be on her own and will need to decide these things for herself. In the meantime, we monitor, we discuss, and we discipline if something stinks in Denmark.

P talked specifically at church yesterday on Proverbs 22:6 that tells us to “train up a child in the way in the way he should go; and when he is old he will not depart from it” and how training is not really fun or easy. It takes work and perseverance and dedication to raise our kids. It takes sacrifice and commitment and dying to self as we spend eighteen short – let’s be honest LIGHTNING FAST – years while they’re under our roof pouring into them and equipping them to be responsible, productive and, ideally, employed adults. And, make no mistake, our kids will model what they see much more than what we say.

The thought that keeps running through my mind and heart as I’ve prayed over the last week is that we are called to be the light of the world, a city on a hill. In the days when Jesus spoke those words, a city lit up on a hill would have been a haven for weary travelers, a welcome sight that they were nearing a place where they could find a warm bed and a good meal to sustain them for the rest of their journey. I want our kids to be a city on a hill, a safe harbor for those who need refuge in the midst of life’s storms. And the only way I know to accomplish that is to allow the love of Christ take hold of our hearts and the hearts of our children so that we can show each other how to find a way home when we are lost, to hold out hope when we see someone is hurting and that our differences only cause each of us to reflect our own unique ray of light in the midst of a dark night.

Since today is about fashion, look who started preschool and is so stylish with his little backpack and elbow patches.

I just wonder if Kate went home and ate Oreos and cried like I did on Caroline’s first day of preschool before going to Target and rejoicing in the ability to actually focus on all the Mossimo clothing. I like to think yes.

On another note, I’m super excited today to tell you a little about FASHIONABLE. FASHIONABLE works with women, both locally and globally, who have overcome challenges ranging from prostitution to addiction to a lack of opportunity. You can read more about them here. And so when you buy any of their gorgeous products, you are helping these women.

A few weeks ago I showed you this beautiful mamuye tote.

And I have a crush on this tirhas saddlebag.

The sisay striped scarf comes in several different color combinations and would look so great with just a t-shirt and jeans.

These dakota bracelets are perfect for layering.

And plus they have an entire customizable collection that might become an obsession as you try to figure out which combo you like the best. Here are the two I came up with but have yet to order because I may change my mind. Again.

This three layer rosary

And this two layer rosary with stamping option

And I haven’t even started with the customizable ring bar where you can create a whole stack of rings.

Best of all, the nice people at FASHIONABLE are offering free shipping on any domestic order over $25 from today through this Sunday. Just enter the code BigMama at checkout to get your item (or items) shipped free. I had the chance to see a lot of their products in person this year at the DotMom Conference and you won’t even believe how well-made and beautiful they are in person.

Now, on to a few other things I found this week.

1. leith oversize turtleneck sweater

I love an oversized sweater because it is so easy to throw on with jeans or leggings. This one is on sale right now for $46.80 and also comes in ivory, black and pale pink.

2. lush roll tab tunic (I fixed the link!)

I don’t know what I wore before I discovered these tunics. They are perfect for layering under something or wearing by themselves. And this one is long enough to wear with leggings. They are currently on sale for just $25.20. It is such a versatile piece that can be dressed up or down.

3. campina bootie

I am not one who necessarily has ever fallen in love with a bootie. But I got the new Nordstrom catalog the other day and these stopped me in my tracks. Maybe I even sang a few lines from Bootylicious.

These are just about perfect. And a great transition shoe from winter to spring. And, let’s be honest, a year round shoe when you live in Texas.

4. embroidered lyra top

This top is so pretty and I love that you could wear it with jeans or dress it up with black pants and heels. It’s $69.95 with extra 25% off with code TAGTIME at checkout.

5. cowled cableneck pullover

I bought this sweater on sale right before Christmas and have already worn it so many times. It’s super soft, long enough to wear with leggings and so easy to throw on. It’s on sale right now for $73.50 plus an extra 25% off with code TAGTIME at checkout.

6. embroidered boiled wool sweater coat

Maybe you’re like me and a little bit in love with Joanna Gaines’s style. And maybe you’re still thinking about a green wrap coat from Anthropologie that she wore during season 1.

Or maybe you’re normal.

Either way, this coat is very reminiscent of that one. I love that it can be tied, or worn loose, or tied in the back. And it’s on sale for $148.50 plus an extra 25% off with code TAGTIME.

7. old navy textured open front cardigan

Old Navy is beginning to get in some of their spring things because it’s, you know, January. I really like this striped cardigan and think it would look great with white jeans.

8. gap tie stripe dress

Here’s something sad. I can’t remember the last time I bought something from Gap besides pajama pants. I have just found them lacking. And also obsessed with putting pockets in bad locations.

But I feel that this dress has potential. So much so that I ordered it for myself and wanted to include a note on my order that said, “Dear Gap, DON’T DISAPPOINT ME”. It has good reviews so I feel hopeful.

It also comes in red and cream and I think it could be so cute with a pair of Converse and a denim jacket.

9. chill you be mine cardigan

I really like this and it comes in plus sizes and is also available in burgundy and charcoal.

10. hun fringe leather sandals

I realize it’s not really time to start thinking about sandals, but these are new at Nordstrom and only $45. Apparently I’m not the only one who loves them because they are already sold out in brown unless you wear a 5 1/2. Which I do not.

That’s it for this week.

Have a good Friday.

A few of you have asked about Piper and Mabel so I thought I’d update you on their Christmas vacation. The truth is that Santa didn’t bring them anything this year. Mainly because last year he brought them each a stocking filled with chew toys and a few stuffed animals which I had to promptly put away because a gigantic dog fight nearly broke out in my living room.

Over the last year I’ve occasionally tried to bring out their Christmas presents to see if they could figure it out, but it always results in much growling and posturing and just generally socially reprehensible behavior.

Sometimes sisters have a hard time sharing.

And so all they got for Christmas this year was love and affection.

(There was a moment over Christmas vacation when I had PMS and Caroline was a little emotional and Piper and Mabel were just full on crazy that I told P the title of my next book might be “ALL THE GIRLS IN THIS HOUSE ARE INSANE”. He didn’t argue with me.)

But they did bond yesterday because I had to take them to the vet to get their annual rattlesnake vaccine. Let’s not think too long and hard about the fact that they need this vaccine because there are actual rattlesnakes that they can come across at the ranch.

Their appointment was for 10:00 a.m. and I began to feel real anxiety about 9:30 when I started to think about the potential goat rodeo that would be involved in getting them out of my car and into the vet’s office. Fortunately, P was home and offered to follow me to the vet to help get them situated. This was an ideal scenario because they listen to him much better than they listen to me and they have also never dragged him across a parking lot and caused him to skin his knee.

He got them out of the back of my car and walked them into the office while I parked. We signed them in and then he had to leave for another appointment, but the girls were relatively calm other than Piper feeling the need to occasionally growl at other dogs in the waiting room.

Eventually it was our turn to go back and Piper proved once again that she’ll do anything for a few dog treats whereas Mabel felt certain the whole thing was an elaborate scheme that would end in me leaving her there forever. She’s always codependent, but there was a moment after she and Piper got weighed that she actually jumped on Piper’s back and rode her in to the examination room in her attempt to get as close as possible lest she be left behind.

They each got their rattlesnake vaccine with no drama and Mabel got a prescription for the occasional doggy depressant because she’s a girl who sometimes has more feelings than she can handle and, last time I checked, no one makes a cabernet for dogs.

And I guess the stress of the day made them feel extra appreciative of each other because I found them curled up in the same bed later in the day.

Mabel, of course, wrote a haiku about it.

Doctor makes me scared
Sister calms my rattled nerves
Yet she’s a bed hog

Well. We’ve survived the first couple of days back in the real world for the most part. However, full disclosure, I had a moment yesterday morning when the alarm went off and I immediately began to think about how long it will be until the next morning when we can sleep in and wanted to cry when I realized it’s at least ten days away.

I’ve spent most of my time catching up on everything I didn’t do over the Christmas vacation. My email inbox was embarrassingly full and my refrigerator was embarrassingly empty. So I’ve slowly begun to tackle email and made a trip to HEB to stock up on all the groceries our life requires. Normally I start the new year with all manner of healthy eating resolutions, but I’m just not feeling it right now. Although I did buy both spinach and kale to hopefully offset the Sour Patch Kids and Hot Tamales. I think maybe this year I feel like survival is key for the first week back and I’ll work on being a better person starting next week. Baby steps.

I also don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, but I just signed on to write a fourth book and it’s due in June. For those of you who are gifted in calendar math, you will quickly realize that June isn’t nearly as far away as it may seem right now and maybe I should start thinking about writing some words for that bad boy. Which is what I’ve attempted to do this week but I always have to write sixty-four things I hate before I stumble upon one thing I can actually tolerate.

There’s also nothing like a looming book deadline to make me feel like it is extremely important for me to clean out every room and closet in my house. I even found a chart on Pinterest that gives you a clean out assignment every day for forty days. This is great in theory, but I am a binge cleaner. I couldn’t possibly sustain the drive or the energy to clean out a section of my house every day for forty days. This is also the reason I’ll never run a marathon. Some things in life are much better as a sprint. (Hypothetically speaking. In reality I prefer not to run sprints or marathons because RUNNING.)

So I may have to tackle a few closets and drawers just for my peace of mind. I realize I need to write a book but there is really nothing that makes me feel more accomplished than cleaning out a whole box of stuff from a closet, especially when I finally commit to getting rid of something that I’ve held on to for way too long.

Speaking of, I have kept all manner of old DVDs even though we don’t even have a DVD player anymore. But I look at those Baby Einstein DVDs and The Little Mermaid and Shrek and I can’t help but remember how they were such a vital part of Caroline’s toddlerhood. (Not that I let her watch that much T.V. This was only during the downtime that we weren’t reading together from War and Peace and eating organic baby food I made from scratch.) However, they are taking up room that could be used for something we actually use. I’m so conflicted.

And we also have a cabinet in our dining room which is where craft supplies go to die. I’m not sure how it became our designated craft cabinet, but it is chock full of glitter sticker letters, pom pons, googly eyes and packs of construction paper. I’ve thought about cleaning it out before but I get scared when I open it and quickly shut the door again and pretend it was all a bad Martha Stewart dream.

Anyway, the fact that I’m discussing the contents of various closets and cabinets in my home is a sure sign that there just isn’t much going on around here except pure procrastination. Maybe tomorrow I’ll actually clean a bunch of stuff out just to get it over with so I can focus on more important things.

Like organizing my spice rack.

And scrubbing my baseboards.

Or checking to see if Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton are still a thing.